Psychology Mental Illness

Susan Doherty's groundbreaking book brings us a population of lost souls, ill-served by society, feared, shunted from locked wards to rooming houses to the streets to jail and back again. For the past ten years, some of the people who cycle in and out of the severely ill wards of the Douglas Institute in Montreal have found a friend in Susan, who volunteers on the ward, and then follows her friends out into the world as they struggle to get through their days. With their full cooperation, she brings us their stories, which challenge the ways we think about people with mental illness.

In They Can't Find Anything Wrong!, Dr. David Clarke shares a life-changing approach to Stress Illness that is based on detailed interviews with and successful treatment of over 7000 patients. Tens of millions of people with Stress Illness are usually unaware of the nature or degree of the stress responsible for their symptoms. Unfortunately, few physicians are formally trained to detect and manage this problem.

O mito do normal faz uma investigação cuidadosa sobre o trauma, o papel da sociedade em nossas doenças e os caminhos possíveis para a saúde e a cura. Neste mundo em que as doenças físicas e mentais são cada vez mais frequentes, o que é realmente “normal” quando se trata de saúde? Em quatro décadas de experiência clínica, o renomado médico Gabor Maté compreendeu que o conceito de normalidade adotado pela medicina está equivocado, pois negligencia o papel que o trauma, o estresse e as pressões cotidianas exercem sobre nosso corpo e nossa mente.

Are you curious about the shadowy parts of the human psyche? Join Dr. Daniel Mierlak, a psychiatrist for 25 years, on a journey to the stranger corners of human experience. Here you'll meet: Tony, chauffeur to the fabulously rich, who overcomes crippling anxiety only to find himself descend into a homicidal rage following a botched cosmetic procedure. Amanda, hospitalized for mania, who sees a change to her medicine as an assassination attempt, and then stalks her doctor for a year after discharge.

Alfredo Zotti, a professional musician and bipolar survivor with a university degree in social anthropology and three years study of psychology, provides an introduction to music theory with specific case studies of applications for Alzheimer's, bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and other issues.

Are we all a little crazy? Roughly fifteen percent of the population will have a psychotic experience, in which they lose contact with reality. Yet we often struggle to understand and talk about psychosis. Interactions between people build on the stories they tell each other-stories about the past, about who they are or what they want. In psychosis we can no longer rely on these stories, this shared language. So how should we communicate with someone experiencing reality in a radically different way than we are?

Vince Granata remembers standing in front of his suburban home in Connecticut the day his mother and father returned from the hospital with his three new siblings in tow. He had just finished scrawling their names in orange chalk on the driveway: Christopher, Timothy, and Elizabeth. Twenty-three years later, Vince was a thousand miles away when he received the news that would change his life - his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home.

The statistics on suicide are staggering. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 800,000 people die by suicide every year, which is one person every forty seconds, and for each completed suicide there may be twenty or more attempts. In How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me, Susan Blauner is the perfect emissary for a message of hope and a program of action for these millions of people.

Until sophomore year of high school, 15-year-old Allison Britz lived a comfortable life in an idyllic town. She was a dedicated student with tons of extracurricular activities, friends, and loving parents at home. But after awakening from a vivid nightmare in which she was diagnosed with brain cancer, she was convinced the dream had been a warning. Allison believed that she must do something to stop the cancer in her dream from becoming a reality.

Despite all her best efforts to break the cycle of catastrophic, destructive patterns of mental illness, Anna Berry found herself at the end of her rope - unemployed, penniless, homeless, and in the throes of a psychotic episode that threatened to destroy her life. Alone and unwell, she manages to find her grip on life, seeks the help she needs, and embarks on a life and career that illustrate that mental illness does not have to be ruinous.

In Second Firsts, Rasmussen walks you through her Life Reentry process to help you break grief's spiral of pain, so you can stop simply surviving and begin to live again. She shows you that loss can actually be a powerful catalyst to creating a life that is in alignment with your true passions and values. The resilience, strength, and determination that have gotten you through this difficult time are the same characteristics that will help you craft your wonderful new life.

In Fast Asleep, Dr. Michael Mosley brings together the latest, groundbreaking science to explain exactly why it is so important that we regularly get enough sleep. Prone to insomnia, he has taken part in numerous sleep experiments and tested every sleep remedy. Combining personal insight and in-depth research, he explains why so many of us struggle with sleep, what works and what doesn’t, and shares his own myth-busting program to help you achieve a good night’s rest.

Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) is the most commonly diagnosed birth abnormality in the US. Little attention, however, has been paid to the psychosocial impacts on these individuals. Liza Morton and Tracy Livecchi are both mental health professionals who have developed a specialty in working with clients who have chronic medical conditions, and they are both themselves living with CHD. While their powerful personal stories are woven into the narrative, the book is focused on providing evidence-based coping and self-care skills for adults living with CHD.

Pauline first became ill when she was 15. What seemed to be a urinary infection became joint pain, then life-threatening appendicitis. After a routine operation, Pauline lost all the strength in her legs. Shortly afterwards, convulsions started. But Pauline's tests are normal: her symptoms seem to have no physical cause whatsoever. This may be an extreme case, but Pauline is not alone. As many as a third of people visiting their GPs have symptoms that are medically unexplained.

Many people claim they would rather be diagnosed with cancer than dementia or Alzheimer's. What they may not realize is that decreased or impaired brain function is not a foregone conclusion as we get older. Our own lifestyle choices and habits can have a significant impact - for good or ill - on our brains. And that means there's hope. Drawing from the latest medical research, Dr. Richard Furman helps listeners understand brain health and shows them how to make three powerful lifestyle changes that can help decrease the probability of developing dementia or Alzheimer's.

Suicide has reached epidemic proportions in America, claiming over 45,000 lives each year—more than car accidents or homicides. For every person who dies there are about 10 unsuccessful attempts. Yet suicides are preventable, if we can grasp the complex factors behind it and look out for suicide’s signs in our families, communities, and colleagues. In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed journalist James Barrat delivers these insights with a deep dive into America’s suicide crisis.

Moving, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting, Lori Schiller's memoir is a classic testimony to the ravages of mental illness and the power of perseverance and courage. At 17, Lori Schiller was the perfect child - the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had entered the horrifying world of full-blown schizophrenia.

In 1994, The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.

If you have a family member who suffers from mental illness, but refuses to seek treatment, you may feel like you're caught in a trap. If you try making life easier for your loved one, you wind up perpetuating dependency and entitlement. If you push for treatment, you are met with resistance or outright animosity. And when you reach out to professionals for help, you are told that nothing can be done unless your family member is ready to change. So, how can you escape the "family trap?"

Leading medical innovator Kenneth Bock, MD, has helped change the lives of more than 1,000 children, and in this important book he offers help to children everywhere. This is the book that finally puts hope within reach. Doctors have generally overlooked the connections among the 4-A disorders, despite their concurrent rise and the presence of many medical clues.